


Game of Chance

by tomato_greens



Series: See How The Main Sail Sets [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Sailing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-23
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-30 00:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By her eighteenth birthday, Phil has had two illicit boyfriends and a Chelsea and her bellybutton pierced; she also has a tattoo on her foot, but that she still loves, and fiercely, so she doesn’t count it among damages rendered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game of Chance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [altri_uccelli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/altri_uccelli/gifts).



> Fifteen years after the boat fic. Happy New Year!

By her eighteenth birthday, Phil has had two illicit boyfriends and a Chelsea and her bellybutton pierced; she also has a tattoo on her foot, but that she still loves, and fiercely, so she doesn’t count it among damages rendered.

“God, you just don’t understand anything, do you,” is the last thing she says to her father before storming out of the tiny house, backpack in hand like she knows where she’s going––she doesn’t, obviously, but her anger feels too huge to contain, venomous and terrible, like the wrath of a god or a bio-terrorist. She’s heading to Orono in the fall; it’s not like she can go too far.

Plus also she lives on an island, for god’s sake.

She wrestles her ancient bike and helmet out of the tangle in their makeshift garage, which Eames and her dad built too long ago for her to remember clearly, maybe even while her mom was still alive, and which is too small to house an actual car. She bought the bike with her own money, so at least she has the right to it. She takes off, staggering once as the wheels readjust to the chain, then hurrying down to the water.

(If she never talks to her father again––and even in the midst of her scarlet fury she knows today is not that day––she will always thank him for the sea, his greatest gift to her.)

It’s a clear day: small favors, she thinks, because the invasive chill the fog brings with it won’t be there but neither will the privacy. The bike ride’s not long enough for her to work all the snapping heat out of her joints, but she stops seeing red when she wanders onto one of the docks and finds herself face to face with the ocean’s comfortingly vast and inevitable blue, feeling like she could just drown herself and her stupid haircut and her endless needling frustrations and wash up on shore a hundred years later, cleaned of her rough edges, a gleaming stone in the sun.

But of course she can’t, so instead she tugs on her sweatshirt and sticks her feet in the water. It’s only June, so it’s electrically cold, and she can feel herself start to go numb in seconds; it’s good, though. The icy winter left over in the water is reaching up through her veins to slow down her heart and her brain, her shallow breaths. In, out, and she closes her eyes, the wind saying hello to the exposed nape of her neck.

She’s not sure how long she sits there; she pulls her feet out of the water and basks in the sunshine until she’s something like content, or warm enough to fake it. Then she hears the telltale hum of an approaching engine, not one of the annoying zippy little boats the tourists have but the real thing, and she shakes herself awake.

No way, no _fucking_ way, she thinks, with relish and as much emphasis as she can on the curse––because there’s the Game of Chance heading towards the Inception’s usual dock. They can handle it themselves, obviously, but she rushes over anyway––why not? She’s missed them. And she’s categorically refused to help with the Inception or the PASIV all summer, even the days her dad takes off, so she’s missed boats, too; they’re not fire in her blood like they are for all the people she grew up with, but she still loves them.

“Oy!” she hears Eames call to Arthur from where he’s handling the forward springline, “Phil’s come out to play.”

Arthur doesn’t say anything in response, but he does wave at her.

She waves back, then uses her outstretched arm to catch the spring and make it off on what she’s pretty sure is the right cleat; she catches the the after spring, too, then Eames and she run forward together so she can tug the loop of the bowline over the corner cleat. Arthur’s already thrown the stern by the time she gets there, which is this annoying habit he has that always leaves her sweatshirt sleeve soaking, but she doesn’t even care; she hasn’t seen them since last summer and all of her anger has evaporated.

Arthur cuts the engine and Eames bails over the side. “Phil!” he exclaims, cupping her elbows, kissing her on the cheek. He always makes her feel––Continental, sort of, and so she kisses him back, almost managing elegance. “My little Pippa, look at you.”

“Don’t call me that,” Phil whines as obnoxiously as she can stand to, rolling her eyes as theatrically as she knows how. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Arthur drop carelessly over the side of the Chance, landing impressively silent on the metal cheese grater of the dock. “It’s _Phil_ , it’s always been Phil, it’ll always be Phil. Stop trying to make Pippa happen.”

“But I like saying Pippa,” Eames argues, his line of reasoning as faultless as always; Arthur leans forward and visibly startles him, one hand caught around his waist.

“Seriously, it's not going to happen,” Arthur agrees, dark-eyed and lithe, leaning forward to kiss Phil, too, less effusively than Eames had done. “Hi, Phil.”

“Hi, Arthur,” she says happily. “What’s up?”

“This maniac is driving me insane,” he whispers conspiratorially, “but other than that, the usual, the usual.” He reaches forward to pat her bangs. “I like the hair. Very punk. Goes with the tattoo.”

“I’ll give you insane,” Eames mutters, pinching Arthur’s arm viciously. Arthur doesn’t appear to react at all except to clutch at Eames tighter. “But really, Phil, me too, I like it, it reminds me of my rebellious youth.”

“I think I’m going through one of those,” Phil admits, rubbing the shorn back of her head. The spinning top on her foot peeks out through the straps of her sandals, only recognizable if you know what you’re looking for, but then both Eames and Arthur do.

“Don’t we all,” says Arthur graciously. “Well, we were going to start off the evening with a rousing and super fun deck oil, but frankly we just got paid from the best charter of our lives, so what say we head to Minnie’s and you can tell us all about it?”

Phil doesn’t usually go to Minnie’s because Peaches is known to be a stickler for IDs ever since she and her two friends bought the place, and even Phil’s best fake isn’t that good; and besides, Phil has known Peaches since she could talk, so she doesn’t think the fake would work anyway, not without someone like Eames to back her up, and the only Eames she’s got is too responsible for that shit. “Sure, okay,” she says.

Which is how she ends up in a karaoke bar, though it’s three in the afternoon and thus too early yet for actual karaoke, ordering a hamburger with two of her favorite people in the universe. Peaches greets them with a shout and high fives all around, even for Phil, who she surely recognizes as a friend of the teenagers she regularly has to oust, and hands them two mysteriously colorful drinks and a Coke with maraschino cherries in it, waving away Eames’s wallet. “Tab’ll start next round, right now you’re my lab rats,” she insists.

“You’re a doll,” Eames tells her, “a veritable peach.”

“You sure know the way to a girl’s heart,” Peaches says, and points to a table. “For God’s sake, go sit down and wait for your burgers and leave me in peace.”

So they go and sit down and wait for their burgers, which turn out to be even more excellent than usual, although it could just be that Phil’s both hungry and happy for the first time since she threw her graduation cap at her dad’s face the night after she walked. She half-expects Arthur to say something about her abominable table manners, but Eames just squirts her more ketchup with a solemn look on his face and they leave her alone about it.

“So, Pippa,” Eames finally says, his plate empty, stealing a fry from her pile. “What’s up?”

Phil rolls her eyes. “You could try to be subtle, you know,” she says.

“Well, we’ve been subtle in the past,” Arthur says, and reaches over to pat her bangs again. “But I wouldn’t say you’re exactly calling for subtlety at the moment.”

She bats his hand away and sips her drink. “Okay, fine,” she concedes. “I had a fight with my dad about––uh, autonomy, pretty much. And how I should have some. He disagreed.” She shrugs and gestures towards the haircut. “So I tried a scientific demonstration.”

Eames snorts. “Not sure I’d call it science, dearling.”

Phil hunches her shoulders. “Look, I didn’t say I was proud of it or anything, it just kind of happened.”

Arthur puts a hand on Eames’s shoulder when he opens his mouth to continue, for which Phil is infinitely grateful. “How can we help?” he asks.

Phil looks at him suspiciously––Arthur has always stuck up for Phil when he’s been around to do it, but he’s also always championed her dad’s causes, and usually refuses to get in between them when they have a disagreement. But his smile is genuine and calm, and she’s struck suddenly by how much she loves the both of them, how lucky she is to have both of them here, with her, eating fatty food and paying for her Coke refills. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I mean, the best thing would be to get out of here, but that’s obviously not going to happen until September.”

Arthur looks at her for a long second and then at Eames, who shakes his head uncomfortably, like he wants to be nodding instead. “You know I’ll do anything for you,” he says, “but I’m not sure this is the right thing.”

“God,” Arthur says, “what’s wrong with you in your old age?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Phil asks nervously.

“Arthur wants you to come work on the Chance,” Eames says immediately, turning to her. “Phil, obviously we’d love to have you, obviously _I’d_ love to have you, but we’ll only be in Nolan Harbor for a little while this summer, we’re spending most of July out in blue water and possibly August as well, and as good a sailor as you are I don’t know if you want that––”

But she’s not listening anymore, not even to Arthur’s plea on her behalf; she’s just imagining miles and miles of ocean around them, blanketing out the squabble that seems to be going on in her brain half of her waking hours these days; the Chance only has six bunks, so it’s not like they’ll be overwhelmed with tourists. “Oh, can I?” she asks, feeling like she’s got stars in her eyes and maybe in her hair, too, her veins, decorating her body in little bursts of fairy light. “Could I really?”

“How could I say no to that?” Eames asks, eyes crinkling at her, and she barely even has to pretend to notice when Arthur leans in to kiss the side of his head, her vision’s so filled with blue.


End file.
